


The Way the World Works

by carmillaverse (happyriotday)



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Retail, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, F/F, F/M, Human Carmilla Karnstein, Retail AU, TWtWW
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-09 23:20:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4368218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyriotday/pseuds/carmillaverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura Hollis works in retail. Which really isn't any more fun than it sounds. But it's okay for now because she happens to work with some of her best friends. What happens when the company decides to (finally) hire some new employees and a dark and mysterious girl strolls into Laura's simple life? Who is she? And why the hell can't Laura seem to get her out of her head?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So this is the first chapter of The Way the World Works, my first Carmilla fic I've written and the first fic in general that I have written in over a year. Apologies if it is a bit rusty, it's been a long time since I've tried to write anything. Also, I think it might be worth mentioning that I am from Australia, and the story is set in Toronto, so I apologise if I happen to get any info wrong. Just let me know and I'll be sure to fix it!

 

Laura woke up with a start, pawing her arm around aimlessly for her phone before finding it and shutting off her alarm. She rubbed one of her eyes while she glared at the much too bright screen with the other.

 _6 am. Ugh._  

Back when she was in high school, Laura was always a morning person. She was always the first person sitting patiently in her morning class, a bright and alert smile on her face as she watched her fellow classmates drag themselves in just as the bell would ring, take away coffees in their hands and sleep still very present in their eyes. She had always loved greeting her dad while he sat at the kitchen counter with his face buried in his newspaper as she grabbed a quick (and relatively healthy) breakfast and went for her morning walks.

Once she was in college, she began waking up later in the mornings. She figured it was from the stress of all the work and being away from her dad for the first time in her life. College was also where she first met LaFontaine and Perry, her two best friends, and quickly fell into their habit of staying up late to binge watch movies and tv shows together. Not that she at all minded. There was some sort of bizarre rush she felt every time she stayed awake past her dad’s usual “lights out” curfew that she’d been subject to until the day she left for college. She’d also slipped into the bad habit of buying (and eating) far too many cookies for one person, usually just deciding on eating a few cookies rather than a proper breakfast every morning.

And now, while Laura forced herself to leave the comfort of her bed, she couldn’t help but feel an unbearable amount of hatred towards early mornings. She didn’t particularly have anything against them per se. She just knew that she hates them.

She grumpily made her way over to her closet to collect her uniform before heading to her bathroom to shower. Only, she figured out, the bathroom was already occupied. She stood in the short hallway of her apartment glaring at the door. There was music playing loudly and floating throughout the apartment. In her tired state she thought she recognised that it was The 1975. As she began to wake up a little more, she registered that Betty, her roommate, was singing just as loud as the music in the shittiest British accent she had ever heard (and she would know - she watched a great deal of British television). Laura let out an exasperated sigh, running her hand over her face in annoyance before stepping closer to the door.

“Uh.. Betty?” She thought she shouted, but judging from the lack of reaction from her roommate she was guessing she didn’t put enough effort into it. With another sigh, she began banging loudly on the door. “You know, some of us actually have to get ready for work, so do you think you could maybe hurry a bit?” She heard slight movement before the music shut off and the door opened abruptly. Betty emerged from the room wrapped in a piece of material that barely passes as a towel. Laura would usually look away in this sort of situation, but she had seen Betty around the apartment in just a towel (sometimes even less) far more times than she can count at this stage. She gave Laura a bright smile, which was strongly not returned, before sighing and looking at the tiny girl.

“Well _someone_ looks like they’re having a great morning.”

“Maybe I’d be having a better morning if _someone_ wasn’t in the bathroom when they know I always head to the bathroom every day at 6.” Betty chuckled slightly as she leaned on the doorframe, much to Laura’s dismay. “What are you even doing awake already?”

“Oh, I went to a party last night and only just got home,” Betty casually said with a shrug as she pushed herself from the doorframe and strolled passed Laura. Laura’s mouth fell slightly open as she turned to stare at the other girl.

“You went to a party? It’s only Wednesday,” Laura said in disbelief. “Seriously, how are you not dead from all the partying you do. Not to mention the fact that you haven’t slept all night.”

“Yeah, well I could say the same about you and your cookie addiction.” Laura rolled her eyes and went back to glaring at the other girl. “Woah, okay, I always forget how grumpy you get in the mornings so I’m gonna leave you to it before you end up killing me.” And with that Betty gave Laura a teasing smile and walked off into her room, probably to collapse on her bed and sleep for the entire day. Laura shook off the thought before she started thinking about sleep again and shut the door, leaning against it.

_Today’s gonna be a long day._

 

* * *

 

Laura arrived at the store about 15 minutes before opening time, having to enter though the back entrance. The retail store was fairly new, having only opened about a year ago, and although she did enjoy it here sometimes, Laura just couldn’t help but feel like she didn’t belong here. Really, she didn’t think any of the staff belong here, but here they all were anyway. The name of the company is Silas. As far as Laura knows, the company was created by a family who was already far too rich for their own good, and they’ve been opening stores everywhere they can in an attempt to compete with the other bigger retail stores.

The store where Laura worked is one of the smallest of their stores, which really isn’t saying a lot since it was still so big that Laura was almost certain she hadn’t even seen it all yet. Still, because it is considered a smaller store, the company only managed to hire thirty or so people for the store since they opened. Though Laura knew everyone in passing, she really only associated with a small group. Danny, the store manager, who Laura actually met in college but never really knew well until she got this job, LaFontaine, and Perry (of course). She couldn’t really imagine working here without them. There’s also Natalie and SJ, but they usually started their shifts later in the evening so they barely see each other. Every now and then Laura would also talk to this delivery guy, Kirsch, who she found really sweet. He was basically a giant puppy.

Laura walked into the staff room, where all the staff went during their breaks, to sign on or off before and after their shifts, or to access their lockers. There were about ten people in there, most of them talking over each other, basically causing a massive mess of sound. Laura quickly signed onto the log-in system using the fingerprint scanner that the store had and joined LaF and Perry who were talking among themselves rather than with the rest of their coworkers. Perry noticed Laura as she approached them and a smile took over her face.

“Good morning, Laura!” She gave a little nod to Laura, and LaF turned to greet her too.

“Hey, L! How’s it going?” Laura smiled brightly at her friends. That was one thing she always loved about them. She could be in the worst mood ever and after only a minute with her two best friends, she could already feel so much happier.

“Morning, guys! Oh, you know. I had a bit of a situation with Betty this morning but other than that, I guess the day’s going as good as any other day so far!” She took a quick glance around at everyone else. They were all still deep in several discussions and even if she wanted to, Laura didn’t think she’d be able to keep up with what any of them were saying. “So, uh.. what’s everyone talking about? They all seem a little talkative this morning.” LaF turned their head to look around the room before looking back at their friend.

“Oh yeah. Danny got word this morning that the company finally decided to hire a bunch of new employees for our store! Apparently some of them are starting a bit later today.”

“What? No way! It took them long enough,” Laura playfully rolled her eyes before giggling slightly.

“I know, right! This is gonna make our jobs so much easier now. Imagine it, though. We’re gonna get to tell the newbies to do everything for us! It’s gonna be so great!” LaF grinned widely before Perry lightly nudged them on the arm, their grin turning to a slightly guilty look.

“LaFontaine! That is not the way to look at this. Yes, it is going to relieve us of a lot of stress and work we have had to carry on our own, but these employees are new and might be vulnerable in the workplace. Don’t let me see you take advantage of them.” Laura watched her friends’ encounter, holding back a laugh. LaFontaine sighed slightly before looking Perry in the eyes.

“C’mon, Perr. I was just joking around. You know I wouldn’t do that.” Perry’s face brightened.

“Of course you wouldn’t. But, you know, some things I have to make sure of, especially when it might involve someone getting taken advantage of.”

“I know, Perr. That’s one of the reasons why you’re my best friend.” The two smiled at each other for a moment before a door closing caught everyone’s attention and Danny entered the room.

“Good morning, guys! Good to see that everyone’s actually here on time for once! Okay, well I’m sure by now most of you will know that we’ve got some exciting news today! We’re finally getting more employees!!” With this, everyone around the room gave a cheer. “I know how hard you have all worked and the company has finally acknowledged that we need more staff to run this place smoothly. We have some of the new employees starting in a couple of hours. I’ll run through the induction procedure with them and then I’ll be sending them to work with some of you guys. So please be prepared to work very closely with them for a while and teach them as much as you can. I don’t have the time to personally train them all up so I expect you all to step up a little bit here." She glanced up at the clock on the wall. "Looks like it’s time to open for the day so everyone have a good day, and please be ready at any time for our new employees. Thanks guys!”

Danny gave a bright smile to everyone around the room before leading everyone out onto the shop floor to start the day.

 _This could get interesting_.

 

* * *

 

 

It had been 3 hours since the store opened and about 1 hour since the new employees were supposed to have started their shifts. Laura was working in the confectionary section today, which she was not complaining about at all. It was quite easily her favourite section of the store. The section was fairly large and Laura liked to take her time in confectionary so she’d already accepted the fact that she would probably be in here all day, especially considering the fact that she would probably be training up a new employee in here for most of the day.

“Uh. Hey.” _Speaking of.._

Laura jumped slightly at the sudden greeting from behind her before standing up straight and spinning around to face whoever it was who just spoke to her.

“Hi!” she greeted brightly with a wide grin as her eyes landed on the girl standing before her and.. _wow._ She took a brief second to take the girl in; long, raven hair, jawline that could quite possibly kill, dark and intense eyes that were trained on Laura, and _oh my god_ , how could anyone have such perfect eyebrows - one of which was rising up slightly as Laura continued to stare at the girl. 

_And oh my god she’s just realised she’s still staring._

She shook her head slightly to try to get away from wherever her mind was drifting to before letting her smile take over her face again. She noticed that the girl was dressed in the same red button-down shirt that every employee had to wear and that her name tag read “TRAINEE” in big letters rather than her actual name.

“Oh! So you’re one of the new employees that I get to train, right?” The girl let her eyebrow relax again before a slightly bored expression took over her face.

“Yep, or so I’m told. You’re Laura?” Laura gestured towards her name tag and nodded her head.

“Yep, that’s me! What’s your name? Or should I just refer to you as “trainee” from now on?” Laura chuckled slightly at her own joke until she saw the lack of amusement on the other girls face.

“Ha ha, cutie. I’m Carmilla. And from what I’ve seen so far, we’re gonna have a _riot_ of a good time working together.” Laura wasn’t sure she’d actually heard someone speaking with such sarcasm in their voice until now, and Carmilla’s eye roll didn’t go unnoticed by her either, but she’d be damned if she let the girl’s bad mood ruin her day after she just got herself out of the morning blues.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Carmilla. And don’t worry, the first few days can be a bit rough, but you’ll get the hang of it in no time. Especially with someone as good as me teaching you what to do!” Once again she let herself laugh at her own joke before Carmilla let out a rather loud sigh.

“So I’m assuming these little jokes you make are a common thing?” Laura felt herself getting slightly flustered as she looked at the girl, not really sure how to react to the girl’s apparent persistence to ruin Laura’s good mood.

“Uh..” _And there’s another eye roll._

“Don’t hurt yourself there, cutie. Come on then, show me how much of a good teacher you apparently are,” Carmilla drawled as she walked towards the boxes of stock Laura had previously brought out. Laura took a second to compose herself before Carmilla looked back at her and raised her eyebrows in an impatient gesture.

“Right. And my name is _Laura_ ,” She said as she made her way over towards the other girl.

“Sure thing, cupcake.”

 

* * *

 

Laura was sitting at a table in the staff room during her lunch break, staring across the room at the table that was currently occupied by the new employees. Danny was standing there trying to give them all a pep talk and most of them were listening quite intensely to her. _Most_ of them. Carmilla sat lazily in her seat with her face buried in a book.

 _Great work ethic already_.

“Hey, L. You okay there?” Laura jumped a little bit and looked up at LaF as they sat down next to her. “You look sort of distracted,” they said as they looked at Laura with slight concern. They glanced down at the table. “Laura, you haven’t even started eating your lunch yet. Seriously. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks LaF.” She gave LaF a reassuring smile before her eyes wandered across the room again and LaF’s eyes followed.

“Really? ‘Cause you’re kinda staring daggers towards the newbies. Did one of them piss you off already?” Laura let out an irritated sigh as she let her attention fall on Carmilla again.

“Don’t even get me started.”

“Let me guess. You get to train Dark and Mysterious over there?” LaF asked. Laura finally took her eyes off of Carmilla and looked at LaF.

“In the first hour she’d already somehow trashed the entire confectionary department.” LaF winced slightly. Everyone here knew that the section was practically Laura’s baby. “ _And_ , within two hours she had managed to call me about thirty different nicknames and roll her eyes at almost everything I had to say. She’s infuriating and she completely ruined any chance of my good mood.”

Damn, L. That sucks. I guess on the plus side though she is kinda hot, right?” Laura’s eyes found Carmilla again. Danny had left the table at this point and all the other newbies were chatting amongst themselves, however they all apparently got the obvious memo to avoid Carmilla as none of them dared to even look at her let alone talk to her. Laura let her eyes roam the girl briefly and _yeah_ , there was definitely no denying that she was hot.

“I mean, she’s okay. But that doesn’t really have a lot of appeal when all she’s done so far is insult me and call me every embarrassing nickname that she can think of.” LaF shrugged as they looked from between Laura and Carmilla.

“Yeah, but it’s still her first day. Give it time and I’m sure you’ll be buds soon.” Laura let out a laugh and looked back at LaF.

“I somehow get the feeling that Carmilla is never gonna define any friendship _ever_ as being “buds”. Anyways, enough about my _great_ new trainee. Who’s yours?” LaF gestured towards a blonde girl who was animatedly talking with the rest of the newbies.

“Elsie. She’s nice enough and she’s done everything I told her to do so I’m not complaining.” Laura finally decided to start eating her lunch, a simple toasted cheese sandwich with (surprise, surprise) a side of cookies, as Perry joined to table with her and LaFontaine’s lunches. LaF gave her a thankful smile as she placed the food in front of them.

“So, what did I miss?”

“Laura’s trainee Carmilla is set on ruining her life and her precious confectionary department, all the while maintaining her use of nicknames and eye rolls.” Laura rolled her eyes at LaF’s description, who pointed towards the gesture. “Sorta like that, thanks for the _completely_ necessary demonstration, L.” Perry gave Laura a small smile.

“It’s okay, Laura. I’m sure she just needs to adjust to this place. Once the two of you know each other a little better I know you will change your mind and before you know it, you two will be friends!"

“That’s what I said!” LaF exclaimed, looking pretty proud of themself. “What about you, Perr? Who is your trainee?” Perry glanced towards the newbies, pointing out a guy who was sitting next to Carmilla. Laura hadn’t even noticed that he had been sitting there earlier, but now that she had, she noticed that Carmilla didn’t seem to completely despise him or his presence.

“His name is Will. As far as trainees go, he’s very good. He can be just a little snarky at times, but I really think he’s trying to do well and make a good impression.” Laura studied Will while Perry described him. He was chatting with a couple of other new employees and from what she could tell he seemed quite friendly. She just couldn’t work out why Carmilla even let him sit in the seat next to her. Obviously he hasn’t pissed her off too badly yet. Or maybe there was another connection?

And why the hell hasn’t she been able to rid her mind of Carmilla since she first met the girl?

“Laura, why have you stopped eating?” Perry’s voice snapped Laura back into reality. “Are you feeling sick?” Perry’s concerned eyes were trained on her as Laura looked down and realised that she had in fact stopped eating.

“Uh. No, sorry Perry. I’m fine, I swear!” To prove this to the girl who was still looking at her with concern, she shoved the remainder of her sandwich in her mouth and tried giving a very muffled “see?” towards Perry. LaFontaine laughed as Laura tried to actually chew the far too big mouthful of sandwich she had now. It was at that moment that Laura’s eyes drifted back towards Carmilla, who’s eyes were already on her, her eyebrows raised in amusement and a smirk on her face. Laura felt her cheeks heat up as she tried to quickly eat her food without choking and making the situation worse.

_Of course she would make a fool out of herself in front of Carmilla literally the day that she met her. Of course._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for reading! I'm pretty excited to finally start posting this story! I don't want to give any set schedule for when I will release each chapter, I tend to be quite busy and don't want to disappoint anyone if I can't get a chapter out by a specific date, but I will do what I can to get the next chapter out ASAP. I also plan on writing longer chapters if I can, so we'll see how that goes.
> 
> I would really appreciate it if you guys could give me your feedback, bookmark this story, etc. It would mean a lot.
> 
> If you have any questions or just want to come talk to me about anything to do with this fic (or anything Carmilla related), you can find me on tumblr. My url is killinmehollis


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops. So I sorta disappeared for a while, huh? Sorry about that, some stuff happened and then some other stuff happened and I could barely find any time to write. But now everything is starting to calm down again so I'll try my best to get chapters out a little faster

 

“I mean, she’s just so totally infuriating! Why couldn’t I have gotten literally anyone else to train? It’s like she refuses to listen to a word I say just so she can piss me off!”

LaF and Perry glanced at one another before placing their attention back onto Laura who was sitting on the couch opposite them practically shaking with rage. She took in a deep breath before launching back into her rant.

“I just don’t get it. I tried to be nice and it got me nowhere. I’ve offered to help her if she looks confused about something and all I get is a “I can handle myself just fine, cutie.” I don’t even know why she decided to get a job in the first place if she’s not going to actually do anything.”

“Laura, we hear what you’re saying and Carmilla does seem like a bit of a handful, but maybe you should try a different approach.” Laura looked at Perry quizzically before Perry continued. “Maybe you and Carmilla just need to talk this out and set aside your differences enough to be able to comfortably work with each other. How about first thing Monday you talk to her and find out what has her so… standoffish.” Perry turned to LaFontaine for support.

“Yeah, L! I say let her have it!” Perry gave LaF a disapproving look and their smile immediately dropped as a guilty expression took over their face.

“No, LaFontaine. The two of them are never going to get anywhere if all they do is bicker.”

“Yeah, you’re right Perry. I guess the only way to get through to her would be to not fight her back. Yay for talking it out, I guess?” Laura let out a heavy sigh. Perry gave her a bright smile.

“Being kind to people is what you do best, Laura. I know you’ll get through to her eventually.”

“Yeah, well let’s hope so.” Laura finally let herself relax a little bit. “Right, so enough of me moping about my trainee from hell. Movie time?”

“Thank god! I thought you’d never ask,” LaF exclaimed as they jumped up from their spot next to Perry to set up the movie.

 

* * *

 

Laura had already been working around two hours before Carmilla’s shift started. When she arrived, she dragged herself over to Laura without so much as a grunt of a greeting to her. Laura rolled her eyes.

“Morning to you too, Carmilla.” The dark haired girl smirked slightly at Laura before moving to walk around Laura. “Hold on,” Laura said, attempting to stop Carmilla in her tracks by grabbing her arm but immediately dropped it after seeing the look that crossed her face. “Uh, sorry. But, hey, so I thought before you started we could maybe talk for a minute?” Just like clockwork, one of Carmilla’s eyebrows rose in question.

“Talk?” Laura nodded enthusiastically, already trying to prepare herself for any protest she was about to receive from Carmilla.

“Yeah! I thought maybe we could try and get to know each other a little better, you know?” Carmilla huffed an impatient breath out and ran her fingers through her hair.

“I don’t think so, creampuff. It’s far too early for anything like that.” Laura’s brow furrowed and she looked at Carmilla with slight confusion.

 “It’s 11am.”

 “Yeah, exactly. _Far_ too early. And last I checked, I don’t get paid to stand here and put up with you attempting to bond with me like we’re friends, cupcake, so how about we do what we’re actually here for, huh?” She shot a glare at Laura and stepped around her to head towards the boxes of stock she could see stacked at the end of the aisle. Laura followed closely behind.

 “Okay, seriously? All I’ve been trying to do since you got this job was be nice to you. Maybe form a friendship so it wasn’t complete hell to have to come in and work with you every day. And for some reason you seem intent on-“

 “Oh my god,” Carmilla interrupted, turning around abruptly and causing Laura to walk right into her. She quickly composed herself and backed away from Carmilla. “Have you stopped and considered the fact that maybe, oh I don’t know, I _don’t_ want to be friends with you? All I want to do here is come in, do my job and get out of here again. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

 “Maybe it’s so hard for me to understand because so far I have seen you do literally everything _other than_ your job. On Friday you spent three hours watching me put stock on the shelf because you suddenly “forgot how to do it”. How can you even think I would buy that you’re here to do work when all you do is get me to do everything for you?” Laura’s voice had considerably risen in volume and she was now practically yelling at the other girl, who if anything looked surprised to be getting a rise out of Laura.

 “Do you seriously expect me to believe all these shitty excuses you use to get out of doing work? Do you seriously think so little of me? How dumb do you think I am?”

 “Oh, please cupcake. This is getting path-“

 “No. You know what, Carmilla? I don’t want to hear it. I’m sick of you having a comeback ready for everything I say. It’s like every chance you get to insult me you have to take. How about instead of being such an asshole all the time you put your efforts into actually doing-“

 “LAURA!”

  _Uh oh._

 Laura winced and turned around slowly to face Danny, who had a stern look on her face as she quickly approached the two girls. Her eyes darted between the two of them before settling on Laura.

 “Uh. Hey Danny,” Laura squeaked out nervously.

 “What the hell is going on over here?” Danny whisper-yelled at both girls before raising her eyebrows impatiently at the silence that followed. “Okay, Laura can you come with me for a minute?” She barely gave Laura a choice, practically dragging the other girl along with her by her sleeve and leaving Carmilla to stand alone a bit awkwardly. Once Danny walked far enough out of anyone else’s earshot, she let go of Laura’s sleeve and turned to face the shorter girl.

 “Care to explain?” she snapped, crossing her arms and looking at Laura expectantly. Laura fidgeted nervously under Danny’s harsh gaze.

 “First of all, I’m sorry. I just sort of lost it a bit.” Danny shook her head a bit disappointedly before Laura started again. “But please understand how frustrating a person she is to be around. Danny, you know me. You know I don’t do this. I barely raise my voice at anyone. It’s just her. She just gets to me a lot of the time.” Danny let out a sigh.

 “Listen, Laura. I’m not stupid. I’ve heard what people think of Carmilla so far and I get that she might be a handful sometimes, but you can’t just go around yelling at her like that, especially if you’re gonna start swearing too.” Laura looked down a little embarrassed. “Seriously Laura, I really expected better from you. I mean, imagine if any customers heard you? You’re lucky it’s been a quiet day so far otherwise we could have had god knows how many customer complaints on our hands.”

 “You’re right, Danny. I shouldn’t have lost it like that. God, I feel like such a terrible person now, which is ironic since _she_ was the one who started this whole mess.” Danny gave her a pointed look and Laura offered an apologetic smile. “ _But_ , I still feel terrible. I promise you I’ll go apologise to her and everything.” Danny shook her head.

 “You’re lucky I like you, Hollis.” Laura’s small smile turned into a thankful one. “Just. _Please_ don’t let this happen again, yeah?” Laura nodded quickly.

“I’m giving you my word that it won’t happen again.”

“Alright, I’ll take it.” Danny started walking away before turning her head back at Laura. “I’m watching you, Hollis,” she said lightheartedly.

This isn’t the first time Laura had thanked the gods that Danny Lawrence was her boss. Laura has always for the most part been a very good employee, but on the very rare occasion that she did something that warranted Danny to step in, she had always been understanding and had given Laura nothing more than just a warning. Laura knew that was mainly because her work ethic was really strong and because she was literally the customer’s favourite employee. The amount of compliments Danny would get because of Laura’s customer service was probably enough to help forget about any small incident Laura had been involved in, such as this one.

Laura took in a deep breath before making her way back over to where Carmilla remained standing. She was leaning against the end of the aisle staring at Laura expectantly.

“Well you’re coming back with a smile on your face, so I’m assuming you got let off the hook then, huh?” Laura bit back whatever comeback she was going to say.

“Please don’t push it, Carmilla.” She let her eyes meet Carmilla’s stare and she wasn’t surprised to find that stupid smirk on her face again.

“Got it, cutie. Officially not gonna push it,” she said as she pushed herself up from where she was leaning against the aisle and started looking at what stock Laura had brought out earlier. Decidedly still feeling slightly guilty, Laura sighed.

“Carmilla?” The girl lifted her head towards Laura. “So. I’m sorry, or something.”

“Or something?” Carmilla questioned, a hint of amusement in her voice. Laura let out a slight noise of annoyance.

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t sound very sorry,” Carmilla replied with the same amused tone as her smirk crossed her face again. Laura glared at Carmilla and she raised her hands up in a defensive way. “Woah, right, the whole “don’t push it” thing. Got it.” Laura tried to soften her gaze as Carmilla tried going back to the boxes of stock.

“I really am sorry.” Carmilla sighed softly before her eyes met Laura’s again.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s just drop it, okay?” Laura nodded and dropped her gaze to the ground. She joined Carmilla next to the boxes and started going through the stock.

“I’m just gonna put the offer out there again, but just so you know, I’m willing to try if you’re willing to try.” Their eyes met again. “You know, it sorta does make it a whole lot easier to have friends around this place.” Carmilla sighed heavily.

“We’ll see. I make no promises, cupcake.” Laura offered a small smile to Carmilla who for once didn’t counter it with an eye roll.

_That’s progress, right?_

 

* * *

 

Danny heard the familiar chime of the short siren going off, signalling a delivery at the back dock. She made her way from her office to the back dock and entered the code to disable the alarm before opening the delivery door to reveal a small truck and Kirsch, one of the delivery guys for the store, who was standing next to his truck with a wide grin across his face.

“What’s up, manager hottie?” he greeted to Danny who shot a glare at him.

“For the millionth time, it’s _Danny_. Or do I need to start calling you Wilson again?” she warned. Kirsch’s grin quickly turned into a horrified frown.

“Woah, bro, no! My bad, _Danny_ ,” he corrected. Danny’s glare relaxed as she approached the truck.

“That’s better. So what have you got for us today?” Kirsch opened the back of the truck and looked inside, glancing at a few small boxes before lifting a stack of them.

“Uh, not a lot today, I don’t think. Look’s like just some promotional brochures or something?” Danny nodded and studied the boxes while Kirsch went to grab his clipboard for Danny to sign to verify that the delivery was made. “Busy day today?” he casually asked as he handed the clipboard over to Danny who shrugged.

“Not really, unless you count me having to stop Laura from practically screaming at one of the newbies.” Kirsch’s eyes widen suddenly.

“Wait, _Laura_ Laura!?” Danny nodded as she finished filling out everything she needed to on the clipboard and looked up at Kirsch. “We’re talking about the same Laura, right? Tiny, innocent Laura?” Danny chuckled slightly and passed the clipboard back.

“Uh huh. That’s the one.” She laughed at Kirsch’s shocked face.

“The newbie must be something if she was enough to piss Laura off then, huh?”

“Well, I mean she’s certainly _something._ I’m just not sure entirely what yet. All the newbies get a 3 month probation period to show us what they can do before I decide if I want them to stick around or not, though, so she better get her shit together before then if she actually wants to keep her job.” Kirsch nodded and opened his mouth to speak as Laura appeared from the corner of the back dock and walked outside to join Danny and Kirsch.

Hey Kirsch!” she greeted enthusiastically. Kirsch’s face brightened.

“Hey little hott-“ he stopped when he noticed the glares from both women and shifted nervously under their gazes. “Uh, Laura.” Her smile returned to her face. Laura and Kirsch had always gotten along really well, besides when he would call girls “hottie” or any other objectifying name, but her and Danny had both been trying to get him to stop and he was trying really hard, so they both usually just gave him a glare before he’d figure out what he’d said wrong and correct himself.

For a while, every time Danny had heard him call a girl that she would refer to him as Wilson, his first name, which he absolutely hated. Danny explained that for every name he would call a girl that she didn’t appreciate, she would do the same to him. It finally sort of made him realise how much girls hated getting called objectifying names, even if he thought at first that they were acceptable to say, and since then he’d paid a lot more attention to what he would say. There were still some slip-ups, but he had made so much improvement that Danny decided to drop the ‘Wilson’ approach and just go with the very Danny-esque glare.

“So like, there’s definitely no chance of me switching which trainee I’m working with, right?” Laura said to Danny. Danny let out a sigh and turned to Laura.

“What happened now? Actually, you know what, I don’t want to know. This is getting ridiculous.”

“I didn’t yell at her again, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Laura said, a bit of guilt still present in her voice after the earlier incident.

“Don’t worry Hollis, I wasn’t thinking that.” She let out another sigh. “I just don’t get how it’s so hard for you two to get along.”

“She’s a very irritating person to be around!” Laura defended before shrinking back a bit at the look on Danny’s face.

“Okay, you know what. No. You two are going to continue to work together.” Laura opened her mouth to object. “No, Laura. I don’t want to hear it. You two are going to be working at the same place practically every day, you both need to figure out how to get along. In fact, I think everyone here could try a little harder to get along with each other. I think we should organise a hang out with all the original and new staff. We could maybe all go to a bar together one night or something,” she thought out loud. Kirsch’s eyes lit up.

“Oh, oh! I’m totally invited to that, right bro? I mean, I basically work here anyways, right?” He exclaimed, practically bouncing around like the puppy everyone thought him to be.

“You seriously think this will solve anything?” Laura whined.

“It better. I’ll let everyone know about it later today so we can organise everything.”

“Ugh, _fine._ ” Laura pouted dramatically as she walked back into the back dock, leaving Danny and Kirsch behind. Danny was already trying to piece together this plan of hers when Kirsch nudged her with his elbow.

“So is that a yes to me coming with?”

Danny sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

 

* * *

 

Laura, LaF and Perry were sitting at their regular table in the staff room. The staff room was a fairly large sized room, and instead of one big table like most staff rooms had, it consisted of smaller tables around the room. Laura often compared it to her high school cafeteria. She tried to get everyone to refer to it as the ‘mini-caf’ but LaF kept making fun of her for it so she gave up pretty quickly.

The three of them had already eaten their lunch and were chatting when Danny made her way in and stopped basically in the centre of the room. She cleared her throat loudly to gain everyone’s attention.

“Okay, listen up everyone. Due to a few issues I have become aware of,” she paused, making eye contact with Laura quickly, who could already feel the guilt start up again. “I have decided that we need to do something about the very clear lack of friendship and bonding between the new and the original employees.” She gestured towards the different tables, making everyone aware that the newbies were all surrounding tables to one side of the room while the original employees had the other side of the room.

“We can’t work like a team if we don’t get along. So we will be planning an “outing” of sorts for everyone that I would prefer you to all attend.” Laura pouted slightly again and she looked up, making eye contact with LaF who was very clearly finding amusement in their best friend’s pain. “It will most likely be scheduled for sometime next week, so if any of you guys have any suggestions and ideas, let me know. Until then though, I want you guys to get to know each other a little bit more, and keep in mind that I’m not going to force you, but please try to mix up who you’re sitting with on your lunch breaks. If you have a spare seat, invite someone you might not know so well to sit with you. Even exchange phone numbers if you want. Just please put in some effort here, guys. Like I said, we are a team but there’s no way we can work together with the way some of you are acting.”

Laura looked down again, the guilt coming back, and she felt like for some reason everyone knew that this whole thing was because of her, even though she was sure no one would have any idea. She looked towards Carmilla to see if the girl showed any sign of guilt like she did. Carmilla was holding her book open and had obviously already been reading before Danny came in, but her focus was already on Laura.

Laura wasn’t sure what the look was that Carmilla was giving to her, but it definitely wasn’t a look of guilt. Or, Laura thought, a look of hatred. She would almost say there was a playful sort of energy in her eyes, but this was Carmilla she was talking about, so that idea got shut down immediately. The girl’s eyes eventually drifted back to her book, but for some reason Laura couldn’t look away. It’s like she was stuck in a trance while she was still trying to decipher the look that was in Carmilla’s eyes. Suddenly there were fingers snapping in here face, and she jumped slightly before refocusing her attention back to her friends.

“Earth to Laura,” LaFontaine called out.

“Right, I’m fine,” Laura said, shaking her head slightly. _Why does that keep happening?_ “What were we talking about?”

“Oh, me and Perr were just talking about how you and Carmilla have really gone and done it now. Now, we all have to be one big happy family all because you couldn’t take our advice,” LaF complained playfully.

“Actually LaFontaine, as far as I’ve heard Laura did follow the advice from _one_ of us.” LaF looked at Perry confused. “I remember you telling Laura to “let her have it” and that’s exactly what I heard happened.” Perry pouted at LaF as their head snapped towards Laura.

“Wait, you actually yelled at her, L!?” Laura looked away from her best friend’s stare.

“Well, I mean, she had it coming I guess?” She heard LaF start laughing and looked up to see Perry hitting them lightly on their arm.

“I’m sorry Perr. I just really didn’t think she would do it. Laura is literal sunshine, who knew she could yell?”

“Ugh, okay enough about me losing my cool. Let’s talk about something else now.” Laura could feel her cheeks heating up with embarrassment. She saw Perry nodding her head quickly, still trying to make LaF calm down.

“Laura’s right. Let’s talk about what Danny said.” Laura groaned internally. _Not_ what she had in mind. “So, this whole seating arrangement thing. We have some seats free. Do we all agree that we should invite people over?” 

“Perr,” LaF whined. “I like our seating arrangement. Why can’t it just be us three?”

“LaFontaine, is it really going to be _that_ much effort to put ourselves out there and potentially make new friends?”

“Yes,” LaF continued whining. Perry sighed and spotted Will walking towards the newbie table. LaF watched Perry’s face begin to brighten. “Perr no-“

“Will!” He turned his head towards their table to see Perry smiling and waving him over. He made his way over until he was standing at the table.

“Hey Perry! What’s up?” Perry gestured to the empty seats.

“Would you like to join us? We have plenty of room here!” He shrugged and started pulling one of the seats out.

“Yeah sure, why not?” He sat down and he and Perry immediately began discussing something they had been working on earlier that day as LaF quietly moped next to Perry. Laura chuckled in amusement at her best friend before letting her eyes wander around the room. She spotted Carmilla looking towards their table for a moment with a look of confusion on her face before looking back down to her book.

_Weird._

 

* * *

 

The next day went quite smoothly. Laura and Carmilla hadn’t gotten into a serious argument since the day before and the raven haired girl was _far_ from actively being friendly to the brunette, but she was keeping the snarky remarks to a minimum and although the nicknames were still very present, Laura decided it was an improvement.

That’s not to say that Carmilla had completely improved, because she was still irritating Laura with her total lack of work ethic, and Laura had noticed that several times during the day Carmilla would suddenly disappear only to randomly appear again a few minutes later. Plus she would barely even talk to Laura and sometimes she would just completely ignore her whenever she would try to make conversation.

She didn’t want to bring all the negatives up again, though. She started to think that maybe there was some truth to what Perry had said the previous week. Perhaps maybe if Carmilla continued being less irritating like she was, then the two could eventually become friends. Maybe. She didn’t want to jinx it by being so sure of herself so soon. After all, Carmilla had only been less, well, Carmilla-y for one day so far.

Who knows, Laura could come back in tomorrow and Carmilla’s snarkiness could be at an all time high. Carmilla’s unpredictability was extremely frustrating for Laura, so she just decided to take it one day at a time.

At lunch Laura, LaF and Perry sat at their table as usual. They had been sitting down for a few minutes when Will sat down to join them. Perry appeared thrilled and LaF was very clearly trying to put effort into the conversation too. Obviously Perry had discussed with LaF why making more friends at work would be a great idea.

The thing that caught everyone off guard, though, was that a few minutes later Carmilla silently took the seat next to Will without so much as a glance at the people seated at the table before finding the page of her book that she was looking for and beginning to read. Laura was shocked to say the least. A grin took over Will’s face and he slung his arm over Carmilla’s shoulders. _Now_ Laura was really shocked.

“Aww, miss me did ya, sis?” Will joked as Carmilla scowled and shoved his arm off of her.

“Shut up,” she snapped without even taking her eyes off of her book.

“Wait. _Sis_!? You two are siblings?” Laura exclaimed.

“Great deduction skills there, cutie.” Will rolled his eyes.

“Don’t worry about Carmilla here, she’s just a big ol’ grump. Huh, sis?” he nudged her with his elbow several times before she removed her eyes from her book to glare at Will, who broke out into a fit of laughter.

Laura still sat in silence, still processing all this new information. She figured that if lunches were gonna be like this from now on, things might get interesting.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Come find me on tumblr, my url is killinmehollis  
> Have a good day and I will hopefully be back with the next chapter soon!


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